The new tea party bible

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'The Starfish and the Spider,' has an attractive thesis for tea partiers, that underfunded groups can outmanuever governments and big corporations.
AP Photo

Members have rejected what some activists have interpreted as efforts to impose more centralized leadership, such as the National Tea Party Federation, or to anoint leaders, such as former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin or former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, who chairs FreedomWorks.

“If you think about systems and organizations as creatures, they sometimes want to introduce a little bit of hierarchy, and you need to actually be very cognizant of hierarchy seeping in,” Brafman said. He predicted that if the tea party is able to maintain a predominately starfish structure, it will continue to draw grass-roots energy and could be a major force in American politics.

“The model is very, very empowering, so that although they may have entered it by accident, you find out that it is actually a really powerful way of organizing, and it kind of turns politics on its head,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve had a movement like this in recent [political] history, and I don’t know whether the two major parties have fully realized this power of the tea party.”

As for the long-term impact of the tea parties, he said he thinks it “really depends on how you define political change. If it’s electing candidates, I frankly don’t know one way or the other whether it can be successful. But if it’s changing political discourse, I think they’ve been very, very effective.”

Brafman wouldn’t discuss his own political ideology, asserting it would be inappropriate because he is doing consulting work with the U.S. Army trying to help it “become more starfish-like.”

His co-author, Beckstrom, served as the director of the National Cybersecurity Center at the Department of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush but has contributed about $26,000 to state and federal Democratic candidates and committees (compared with $500 in 2003 to then-GOP Sen. Arlen Specter).

Yet, even tea partiers who’ve labeled the pair as liberals have embraced their book.

In a blog post praising the book, New Jersey tea party activist Lon Hosford blasted Brafman and Beckstrom for asserting in an otherwise critical passage about the stifling rigidity of the federal bureaucracy — that President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal “was able to save millions from starvation and reverse a crippling depression.” But he recommended the book, concluding “conservatives can learn from liberals as we are fighting them and the communist vulnerabilities they exude.”

I saw Kenneth P. Vogle on MSNBC and this man wouldn't know the first thing about what motivates the people who support fiscal responsibility, limited government and personal freedom. He is a liberal through and through and can't make an impartial report. Just the headline tells you that fact is true.

From the article: " “Rules for Radicals,” the iconic liberal organizing manifesto by Saul Alinsky, was an unlikely bible for tea party activists as they tried to mobilize their movement last year. And now, as they struggle to demonstrate their impact and staying power, they have another unlikely book to live by — a kind of management guide written by a couple of Stanford M.B.A.s that extols the virtues of decentralization."

I'm an active member in the First Coast Tea Party here in NE FL, and the beginning of this article exposes a severe lack of understanding of what's motivating us Tea Party patriots. Just yesterday we put together groups of 20-30 protestors at 7 different locations around Jacksonville on less than a day's notice to support the embattled people of Arizona as they are assaulted by illegals from the south and radicals in Washington. They went on their own time and where they wanted.

Saul Alinsky has NOTHING to do with our patriotic movement, that icon of the left is burning in hell as we speak. We have no "organzing bible" and to make such a claim exposes the methods of the left. We have organizing documents that we all revere--The United States Constitution.

As Brafman and Beckstrom tell it, the Spanish conquistadors in the 1500s laid waste to the highly developed Aztec and Incan empires, seizing their gold, killing their leaders and bringing much of Central America under Spanish control. But when the Spanish tried to expand northward into modern-day New Mexico, they were stymied by the Apache, whose near-constant raids not only prevented the Spanish from expanding, but actually captured parts of what is now Northern Mexico.

I have this feeling that IF the Tea Party leaned Liberal in line with the Democrats philosophy the so-called MSM would be .... all over themselves writing stories and spinning in a tizzy on television about how America is tilting toward the Liberal persuasion and the Republicans are "out of step" with mainstream America.

As it is, with the majority of Americans of all ages and ethnicities embrace the political philosophy of the Tea Party, which is NOT in line with 93% of the political thinking of the so-called MSM or the Democrats, consequently the so-called MSM and Democrats will do everything in their power to persuade Americans the Tea Party folks are "out of the mainstream" of American politics.

America is a Center-Right nation being "led" by a far-left President and Democrat Congress in which the majority of the American people are against them. The Tea Party is just one more expression of Americans disgust with Liberal policies and this administrations Chicago-thug, Saul Alinsky politics.

I can't wait until the mid-term elections to vote out every single Democrat in power in my area.

I can't wait until November either. Because no matter what, who ever has control of the House, we'll never hear from the Tea Baggers again.

If Democrats retain control, Tea Baggers will get blamed.

If Republicans take control, they'll dump the Tea Baggers so fast it'll make your head spin. Because 2012 is a general election year where Republicans will have to appeal to moderates. Republicans will disavow any connection to the fringe in droves in the hopes of appealing to the Latino vote in the west.

Demographics are against the Tea Baggers and their demise on the national stage is a foregone conclusion. Purely a reaction to the economy tanking and their distrust of oldline Republicans.

Your statement is meaningless because it is very clear you do not understand what is really going on in this movement. You are so lost in your liberal ideals that you cannot see the forrest from the trees. You are funny dude. I talk to people like you everyday and it kills me how ignorant you guys are.

Agility is key in any business, but outmanuvering this huge massive government expansion of Obama? One that is without a message to Americans? A government so large that virtually every business or industry in the USA, has been blamed, maligned, legislated with takeovers or restrictions on how it can operate? With a President and majority Congress that has put so much uncertainy into the economy it's going no where, with unemployment steady at 9.5%?

Really, just little ole Tea Partiers could make a difference? YOU BET THEY CAN.

Obama has no vision of America except to reassemble it and make it government driven. TP-ers have a different, better, vision of America, and that's all it's going to take to defeat the Dems in mid term elections and put the first damper on this President's agenda,,, Nov cannot get here soon enough.

“This book is about what happens when there’s no one in charge,” write the authors of “The Starfish and the Spider,” Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom. “It’s about what happens when there’s no hierarchy. You’d think there would be disorder, even chaos. But in many arenas, a lack of traditional leadership is giving rise to powerful groups that are turning industry and society upside down.”

I do believe that a document a few years ahead of the "The Starfish and the Spider" called the Declaration of Independence turned industry and society upside down. Try reading it Ken!

You know Reid has no business having a chance of winning this election, so why is it even close? Angle. Pure and simple, Tea Baggers got a nut job nominated and they grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory in NV. This same story will play out all over the country and it's because when NORMAL people start paying attention to the whackos, they get turned off. But, enjoy possibly winning the battle in November. Rational America will enjoy winning the war.

The Tea Party will remain a force in the world of Politics because it stands on Principal. Principal and Truth will prevail and all who stand against it will be exposed.. We need to get back to our roots and place our lives in the hands of God and our Constitution.. End of Story. Our salvation will never be found in big government or in Washington